If you ask a seasoned comedy nerd what Army Man was, chances are they still wouldn't know.

But if they did, they'd know it was a small-scale zine founded by comedy writer George Meyer in 1988. Dissatisfied with the comedy scene at the time, Meyer used Army Man as a vessel for the surreal, satirical kind of humor that he and his comrades wanted to create. While only three issues were published between 1988 and 1990 (only thirty-two pages of content total), the zine commanded respect in the American comedy world, with veteran writer Sam Simon raiding its staff for a certain yellow-toned cartoon show he was running at FOX.

In addition to Meyer, Army Man boasted John Schwartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Jack Handey, Ian-Maxtone Graham, Roz Chast, Jeff Martin, Andy Breckman, Andy Borowitz, Bob Odenkirk, Mitchell Kriegman and many more among its contributors. In fact, Army Man published the first versions of Handey's "Deep Thoughts" feature that he'd make famous on SNL.

Army Man's combination of comedic pedigree, historical significance and underground sensibilities have given its limited output serious standing in the world of humor. What George Meyer began as an incubator for small ideas turned into maybe the largest breeding ground for some of America's finest comic minds to strut their stuff. And after all this time, Army Man's peculiar point of view holds up even thirty years after publication.